


coming home

by honeybun



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Domestic, Emotional Constipation, Established Relationship, Fluff, Just silly boys who can't share their feelings, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27991998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeybun/pseuds/honeybun
Summary: It feels like a confession, one he should keep close to his chest unless it turns into an admission of guilt. When did missing someone become so complicated?In other words, Mo Guan Shan wanted He Tian to come home.
Relationships: He Tian & Mo Guanshan (19 Days), He Tian/Mo Guanshan (19 Days)
Comments: 44
Kudos: 231





	coming home

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I'd just like to say a huge thank you for the amazing feedback I received on my last fic <3 I can't tell you how much it meant to me! I'll attempt to reply to all those comments today. 
> 
> If you found time to leave kudos and a comment previous please know how much it means to me, it keeps me wanting to write! 
> 
> This one is a little different, I wasn't too sure if I felt like posting it as I freaked myself out it wasn't good enough ahhaah - but I really hope you can find some enjoyment in it :)

Mo Guan Shan is perfectly fine.

Or so he tells himself. 

He taps his foot impatiently, when he sits on the sofa his leg jiggles up and down, stuttering across the floor and upsetting his tea. It’s the tenth or eleventh time he’s looked at the clock now - which resolutely does not respond to his glares and move faster. He could have sworn the batteries are out or something, why was this thing so fucking loud?? He takes it down. 

He flicks through his calendar, colour coded to make sure he doesn’t turn up at the wrong part time job, little X’s to show he’s busy. It had taken a while, but He Tian now takes up the colour purple, highlighting his months in large swathes. It used to be when they’d arranged to do something, now it’s just whenever he’s around. When did it become that way? When did Tian’s time suddenly become his? 

He itches at the same spot at the nape of his neck, pale skin flashing red at the irritation. When did he start caring so much? 

He Tian had looked smug - bastard - when he’d left that morning, said it’d just be for a week. One week. His plying tone indicated to Mo that he was far too pleased, had to be, to pander to him so much, hands cupping his waist and pulling him closer. Pleased at how Mo’s fingers had subtly tagged onto his sleeve, how he leaned in further, glanced at him for longer, brows pushing together. Pleased that Mo who didn’t show much favour to anyone, was leaning ever so slightly into the hand that cups his cheek. 

‘Will you call?’ comes a sullen question.

‘Everyday,’ answers He Tian. He wasn’t too used to promises, didn’t make them often - but they spill so quick and easy from his lips for Guan Shan it’s sometimes hard to keep up with them all. He feels quite content to stay forever in the doorway now, Guan Shan’s cheek cupped gently in his hand, not moving, eyes flicking away in gentle embarrassment. He Tian leans further forward and bumps his nose against Mo’s forehead, his lips by his temple. 

‘Did you pick up all your stuff?’ comes a grumpy voice from around his collarbones, laid on so thick as to veil the care in the question, the concern. He Tian knows he knows the answer, knows because he’d asked already, sat up in bed and sulked as He Tian carefully folded and packed suit shirts and shiny leather brogues. 

‘You fly so much you’re probably partially responsible for climate change,’ Mo had mumbled from the bed. His words don’t snap so much anymore, not like when they were younger, but he still grumbles and curses and acts petulant when he’s hurt, He Tian knows this now. He’d learned all these quirks reverently, thumbed the pages of ‘ _Mo Guan Shan: A Beginners Guide’_ and folded corners - _read again later_ \- so that he could understand him better. Better than anyone else, he says to himself, possessive and had long acknowledged the fact. 

He Tian doesn’t answer, just smirks, and once he’s finished with his bag he leans over to press a kiss against Mo’s lips. He doesn’t move, just sighs as He Tian pulls away, leaving another kiss on his nose, against his eyelids, on his forehead. Eyes downcast and fists clenched in the covers. 

‘Sappy idiot,’ another grumble. _Don’t go_. Mo Guan Shan translations available from page 206. 

Once he’d turned around, Mo had leaned out of the door and called to him, frown already dimpling the skin between his eyebrows, ‘Come back in one piece!’ He Tian raises a hand and nods, liquid warmth settling in his chest, leaving with him on the plane and making itself known throughout the week when he feels a particular pang for Mo. _Come back in one piece._ He’d never had much motivation to look after himself before, would get in fights and piss people off with a quick word as if he had no stocks in his own mortality. But now Mo is more than enough, he always likes to present himself, as free from harm as when he left, _look_ , I listened, I did as you asked. Is this what normal people do when they’re in love? Can you show me? Hell, he barely even smoked anymore.

Mo thinks he recalls a time when he’d genuinely not cared, even feeling relief when he didn’t have to see that smug bastard’s face. Another day without that pest. Why do things change so fast, he wants to ask, _why am I always the last one to know?_

No, he thinks, he’s not sure if he’s ever not cared. Even when he’d thought he was happy to be free from him for a few hours, his heart had jumped when his name flashed up on his phone, demands to come cook for him. 

Mo remembers the first time it had happened, small markers of a shift between them when they’d tentatively started to lean towards one another in that particular way. Sweaters left accidentally slouching over chairs or socks mixed up in the wash become a toothbrush left next to Tian’s, pressing together in the pot on the sink in the bathroom. When, Mo would like to know, does it become a drawer for extra clothes, that Tian points him to one day without looking at him, ‘You can keep your stuff there if you’d like.’ 

It feels dangerous, leaving a mark, evidence. 

So he does it in small measures, only ever when He Tian offers it, and sometimes even then he’s cautious. The drawer remains only half full, until one day He Tian is crouching by it and haphazardly shoving things in directly from a glossy paper bag, ‘You’re always fucking cold over here, is it because you don’t own any jumpers or something, Little Mo?’ 

Mo catches his breath and looks to the side, never a good liar, but Tian catches his eye and smirks, ‘Don’t worry, you’re all stocked up now.’ 

It’s things like that which He Tian makes easier, in such a kind, understanding way Mo doesn’t quite recognise him from who he knew in school. Maybe it hadn’t been unearthed then, but still needed time to show itself, a trait long since beaten down in him, only coming to the surface with Mo. 

And after that thought, he never takes it for granted when Tian asks again, the thought that he could be the only one, the thought that maybe Tian is as nervous to offer it as he is to accept.

It’s only been two days, but he deletes his calendar app, as if that’ll help the matter. He turns up two hours late for his shift and in the wrong uniform because he’d gone to the _other_ place first and now he’s flustered and tired and can’t help but think that he’d have been able to tell Tian all about his stupid mistake and laugh it off rather than stew over it all night and curse the bastard for not being _here_. 

He lays awake at night, hand twisted in his hair and a strange restlessness haunting him. He was always the last one to know, to realise suddenly that half his stuff lived at He Tian’s place, that suddenly it didn’t look quite so barren anymore, and worst of all that he accidentally made his way to He Tian’s apartment now instead of his own after work - how’d that happen _by accident?_ Even his own feet were privy to some information someone else wasn’t sharing with him. When did it become- _When did it become home_ \- that’s what he’d like to know, but even asking it feels somehow illegal, like He Tian will change and snatch the rug from under him suddenly, foolish for thinking so much of himself as to think something that was He Tian’s was his too. 

For all intents and purposes, they’d gone about making a home in small ways before either of them would admit it. One weekend scouting around IKEA for the usual shit, and coming back with twice as much as they’d intended to buy, arguing over flatpack furniture that they’d paid for half and half at Mo’s insistence. Mo eventually getting frustrated and throwing the instructions at He Tian before needing to go and cool off, Tian finding him later meticulously following the crumpled instructions and putting things together on the floor. The sun is beginning to lighten the sky, and He Tian goes to make hot tea which he places on their new coffee table before sitting down and picking up a screwdriver to start work on the other side of Mo Guan Shan. Afterwards Guan Shan had tentatively made his way to sit between He Tian’s thighs, closing his eyes and sighing, ‘Next time you can buy this shit ready made and I won’t say a fucking thing.’ 

He Tian smiles and presses a kiss to Mo’s temple, ‘Sure, sweetheart.’

He Tian always gives Mo just what he wants and it’s awful, it feels wrong, undeserved. Like stealing, or like he’s cheating someone else out of something. Like you just won the jackpot but with a ticket you found on the ground. Undeserved gains. Mo feels the weight of universal karma, just biding its time, sure enough it won’t be long before it finds out there’s been some great unbalance, some debt unpaid. 

All of this and yet he wants more. He twists in the sheets - _He Tian’s_ sheets, and tries to kick away these thoughts, but nothing pushes them away and he ends up with a headache and feeling chaffed from the cotton. 

He wants to ask him to _come home._

The problem is that he can’t ask him to come home when He Tian’s _home_ is not his or vice versa. He fucking _hates_ it here. He hates his apartment too. Tian’s place echoes again like it did before, unfriendly corners and the height of the place makes him feel like he’s in a trap. His own place is too unlike He Tian, only a drawer of his clothes and some shoes stacked up and his dumb expensive liquor crowding the small cabinet in the kitchen. It’s like trying to get comfortable but you’re wearing someone else’s clothes, always aware they don’t fit you right. When did his own apartment become a war zone of ignored feelings, when did it happen that he only feels right when _he’s_ there. 

It’s fucking _rude_ , to be honest. 

He Tian had muscled into his life and made space for himself. He’d had the audacity to turn what was a simple _crush_ into this. It had been years now, and somehow they always muddled along together, buying fucking kitchen appliances, going out for drinks after work on Friday. It was sickening. It left a sour taste in his mouth and he felt uneasy at the thought he’d shown his hand already, that He Tian must know. Maybe he’s _humouring_ him. 

It would make his stomach lurch sometimes, like whenever he sees He Tian’s frame blocking the dim light in the arch leading to the kitchen. He’d only gotten broader when he got older, and taller, some people just got everything huh? God’s _fucking_ favourite. He’d twitch when a hand would rest so casually on his hip, He Tian’s pointy chin sitting on the top of his head. Fuck that made him mad at how nice it was, how _intimate_. 

It means cooking in his own kitchen somehow feels bereft. Like the small space is suddenly not small enough for him. Like the annoying and stupid cooking suggestions He Tian likes to give him are somehow a comfort, like being bothered while he’s handling hot oil is all part of the challenge now. 

He Tian’s place is no different. A bed that’s too big, windows looking out into the blinking lights of the city, all those little homes. 

After tossing and turning for too long he collects up all the pillows at a line against his back, fucking embarrassing, he mutters to himself. If Tian knew, oh _God_ , he’d take too much visceral pleasure in knowing this. Knowing Mo _misses_ him. 

So, the point is, both He Tian’s place and his own put him at odds with himself, an uncomfortable feeling pervading through him until he forced Jian Yi and Zheng Xi into meeting up, feeling worse when they arrive and they’re all- _close_ , is the word his head supplies. He ignores this, _annoying_ , he decides is correct. 

It is these facts that make what plagues Guan Shan all the more annoying. He doesn’t know what he means when the thought to text He Tian comes to him at three AM, the night after he’d gone - or rather, the morning after. He doesn’t know why he so desperately wants to text him to _‘come home_ ’. But, ignore it with all his might, it still assaults him incessantly, so much so he finds himself holding his head in his hands in the shower, four hours later and trying with all the energy he can muster to get out of the warmth and go to work. 

He does not text.

He Tian does call though, every night, their conversations are terse and stilted, short mainly because Mo won’t allow himself to ask the questions he really wants to, nor will he tell Tian he misses him. Instead they talk about inane things that make Mo dizzy, sure there’s something behind them, a labyrinth of meanings that he can’t quite grasp yet. Tian mumbling things to him in some dark hotel room somewhere. He’ll return not smelling right, not like their- like _his_ detergent, face a little stubbled and bags beneath his eyes from lack of sleep. 

Mo fiddles with the backs of his ears, picking at them and worrying the skin there until it’s red and sore around his studs. They’re the ones Tian had given him, the ones he hasn’t taken off. 

Negotiating his own brain becomes exhausting, like he’s hiding from himself. A list of things he isn’t meant to know or acknowledge. That he wears the earrings because they’re a little piece of armour against the brutal world which only seems a little kinder with Tian by his side. That he’d picked up a jumper of his and worn it one night when he was sick of not sleeping, pressing the collar to his nose and groaning when he wakes up, well rested. It isn’t _fair_. 

‘What have you been doing all week while I’m gone, Little Mo?’ 

‘Fucking none of your business, that’s what,’ Mo presses fingers into the sockets of his eyes. How does He Tian have this affect on him? He abruptly feels so tired, worn thin. He doesn’t want to speak like that to Tian, instantly regretting it while still not knowing what else he could say. The _truth_? That’s dangerous. 

Tian sounds delighted, like he’s been presented with a deep glass of whiskey, ‘Naughty boy, have you just been beating off all week into my expensive sheets?’ 

Okay, so maybe he does deserve it. He’s teasing, of course he is, but Mo’s temper flares up and He Tian has always known his buttons and pressed them _exactly_ right. 

‘You’re a sick bastard, do you know that?’ Guan Shan hisses, lip smarting from where it had cracked at his insistence to answer. Blood thrumming in his ears, the only time he’d felt less like a zombie this week. 

He Tian hums pleasantly, ‘You keep me on the straight and narrow usually…’ Mo hates how much he wants him to say more, _more_ . Tell me what else I do for you, tell me you’ve changed too, that it isn’t only _me-_ ‘Tell me what you’re wearing, Mo, and I’ll buy us some more sheets when I get back-’

 _‘Bastard_!’

He finds himself haunting the rooms like a ghost, collecting up evidence that He Tian was here, that surely he’ll return. By day four his nerves are wearing thin and his hands feel numb by the time he sits down at the sofa. He made food but he doesn’t taste it much when he shoves it into his mouth. He’s flicking through channels when he comes across some dumb show he used to watch in High School. 

He’d go over to He Tian’s place because he had some huge TV set and they’d sit and bitch and eat snacks into the early hours. One episode becoming three becoming five. Then suddenly the sun is peeking out over the horizon again and He Tian is asleep on his shoulder. He’d never pushed him off. Sometimes he’d look at Tian and wonder how someone so masculine looking could have such long lashes, be so pretty. 

It sets an ache off in his chest when he thinks back to then. Before his apartment had felt like a morgue and a few days without He Tian felt like an eon, every moment pulling teeth. 

His fingers fumble with his phone, pressing He Tian’s profile before he has time to think any more about it. It’s a picture of them from last winter, scarves and hats obscuring both of their faces, He Tian is winking at the camera and pressing a kiss to Mo’s cheek. Mo is looking up at him, not even annoyed. He suddenly hopes that He Tian loves him too. 

He Tian answers the phone in two rings, sounding vaguely out of breath like he’d rushed to pick up. 

‘Are you okay?’ the rushed tone of his voice makes Mo sink into the couch a little, content at the thought Tian might worry about him. 

‘Mmm,’ Mo answers, articulately. 

He Tian scrunches the sheets in his palm, towel around his shoulders to catch water droplets from his hair. The sound from Mo rumbles through his phone and travels down his body, pooling in his bones. 

He’d been staring at his phone. All. Week. 

He Cheng kept frowning at him like he was trying to figure it all out, flicking cigarette ash out of an open window and watching him. 

‘You waiting on somethin’ or?’ the question hung in the air _. Mo Guan Shan._

He hadn’t ever been sure what his brother had thought about the two of them. He Tian had never hid it from him, too proud of Mo to ever let anyone think any different, nor had he welcomed any comment. He’s dangled the fact in front of his brother almost. _See? He’s mine._

Guan Shan was always good at toeing the line once he’d figured it out. Never pushing into Tian’s space when he wanted to, not until Tian made the first move. He just wanted him to _text_ , for crying out loud. 

‘What does ‘mmm’ mean huh, Momo?’ his voice is quiet and deep in his dimly lit room. His head tilts to the side and he shuts his eyes, if he tries hard enough to faze out the white noise and tinny quality it feels almost like Guan Shan is right next to him. 

It’s intimate then, the two of them breathing over the phone to one another. Like sometimes when they both wake up in the dead of night, tangled together and swapping secrets that won’t ever see the light of day. Easier to confess in the dark. 

He hears Mo sigh and a rustle of clothing as he adjusts himself. Tian wonders whether which apartment he’s at, whether he’s on the sofa or in bed already, whether he’s tired from work or whether he’s eaten enough. 

‘You remember that dumb show we used to watch after school?’ Mo mumbles, and he doesn’t even need to mention the name before He Tian knows. Every detail of the life he’d lived after meeting Guan Shan a carefully kept history, everything before lost to the winds of time, prehistoric. Before Mo and After Mo. 

‘Uh huh,’ Tian answers, leaning back into his pillows, wishing they didn’t smell so different to how they should. Like Mo and him mingled together. How Tian would like, muddied together so thoroughly they could never be separated. 

‘It’s on now….’ there’s a pause, Guan Shan considering something, ‘We should watch it together.’ 

_You should be here._

He Tian’s fingers twitch at it, the hushed truth of it, the smaller voice that Guan Shan uses when his head is buried in the crook of He Tian’s neck. _Come back._

‘I wish I was there, I wish I was-‘ _home_. His hand clenches against his knee, stars bursting behind his eyes as he screws them shut. 

The concept of home had never much appealed to him. Or so Tian had told himself. Family for the most part just tied you down, and the majority of them couldn’t give a fuck about you anyway. And love. Well. Look what it had done to his dad, and to his mother, cold in the ground. Homes are branches that snag and pull at your clothes, holding you back, and Tian had always run away, faster and faster until the numbness from his lack of connection had comforted him, for a while. 

It had come as a surprise to him that the idea of home had begun to sound appealing. Maybe to try, just a taste. That the idea of someone - not just _anyone_ though - would be waiting for him to return. That he’d have something to return _to_. 

The thing is that Mo has had more practice at this, whole classes ahead. His mother had even welcomed He Tian in with open arms and a smile like Guan Shan, there’s that unbearable warmth, the suffocating presence of a home whenever he steps into her place, whenever he sees Mo follow after her and speak with a special kind of voice just for her. He Tian doesn’t think he’s ever had this, at least not for a while, never staying anywhere long enough to call it a home, and before he could reach that conclusion, moving away. Standing still is too much like death, but when he’s with Guan Shan he’d welcome it. Standing still with him while everyone else streams past them, salmon going upstream, Mo an unmovable rock Tian wants to cling to.

He begins to think he quite likes to be held down, not blow like a kite that’s been let go into the wind, but rather anchored to earth, clasped tight by two small hands. He begins to long for it, to hear the words from Mo Guan Shan’s mouth. Wonders if he’ll slip up one day so He Tian doesn’t have to ask. If they’re at the market and Guan Shan turns to ask him, ‘Should we go home?’ and they’ll part the seas of bustling shoppers to return. Warmth, comfort. Mo Guan Shan. 

He Tian realised that the burn of cigarette smoke doesn’t seem to cut it anymore, that his lungs only protest vainly, the ache of an intake of breath so dull he can barely feel it. And abruptly there’s a growing hole at the centre of his chest he can’t cover up no matter what he indulges in. 

Mo is silent on the other side of the line but He Tian can tell he’s worrying. He can tell because he knows, he knows him better than himself. He wants to tell Guan Shan that he knows he always makes extra because he likes to see He Tian eating his food, that he always leaves a couple more things behind than intended so he can have an excuse to pick them up. He wants to say that he knows all these things and that he holds them dear, that sometimes at night he presses an ear close to Guan Shan’s chest and imagines a small bird fluttering inside. That he feels so fiercely protective over him because sometimes home is not a place. It’s a person. 

Mo is home. 

He Tian wrenches open his eyes and darts for his bag. 

‘Hello? Uh? _Tian-‘_

‘Yep, uh- I’m- I gotta go, but-‘ He Tian frowns as he tries to shove his things into his bag without making too much noise or getting toothpaste on his shoes. 

Mo sounds disappointed and He Tian has to halt his slight glee, the part of himself that would love Mo to long for him, ‘Oh, alright.’

‘Sweetheart?’ Tian grins, bag slung over his shoulder and putting bare feet into sneakers. 

‘What?’ Mo mumbles. Tian wants to pinch his cheek and press kisses against every inch of his skin. 

‘Put your camera on,’ he hears a grunt and shuffling in the background, but in a few seconds his screen flickers into life and there is Guan Shan, looking perturbed but still there. Faint rings around his eyes, ‘Come closer,’ He Tian mumbles, ‘Closer-‘ 

Guan Shan sighs and moves his phone further towards his face. 

‘Chu,’ He Tian nuzzles the screen against his lips and nose. 

‘You are such a bastard!’ Mo shrieks, red flushing up his cheeks in such a pretty way Tian’s heart thrums in his ears, fingers twitching to have Mo in touching distance once again. 

‘I’ll see you soon,’ He Tian says, resolute. 

Mo Guan Shan looks away from the camera, ‘As if I could care less when you come back.’ 

He Tian grins. How had he found Mo? How did things get so messed up that a bastard like him could just bump into a prize like Mo Guan Shan? What were the chances? 

He takes the hotel steps rather than the elevator, preferring to make his own way. He hails a taxi cab and texts his brother on his way to the airport. 

  * Sorry. Cat just died. Apartment blew up. Had to go home. 



A reply buzzes through in only a few seconds:

  * You don’t have a cat, Tian. 



While he’s rushing through airport security, wallet, belt and shoes all piled in the plastic container, he gets another text:

  * Send my regards to Mo. Get home safe. 



Tian scoffs. His brother is pretty observant after all. The last sentence gives him pause. Now, he doesn’t have the beginners guide to He Cheng, no, but he can make a good guess, a rough translation. He can imagine the small smile that might play across his brother’s face, a pride in him not so frequently inspired. _Go see him._

After four hours of dry circulated air, shit coffee and the smell of humans canned together like sardines, he’s finally touching down, grabbing his bag and in another taxi. 

It’s exhilarating like this. Flashbacks of a dozen cheesy family movies go through his mind, coming home to somewhere warm and welcoming. There’s a quick stab of doubt in his mind then, that maybe that isn’t what Mo wants. That maybe He Tian was pushing his own interpretation onto Mo, and wasn’t it stupid to have fucking got on a plane and flown all the way back. He doesn’t know where he even is, what if he’s out, what if he’s- He won’t be. If there’s one thing he knows, it’s Mo. The safest bet he could ever make. The only thing he can ever depend on. The only one. 

He takes steps two at a time, then he’s made it to his apartment and he’s quietly pushing his key into the door and shuffling in. Dropping his bag. Toeing off his shoes so as to make as little noise as possible. 

Through the large windows the sun has sleepily started to show over the horizon. He Tian stops for a moment to soak it in, a clear morning sky. He feels light, weightless. 

The door to the bedroom is open a little, and the sight he happens across makes him pause for several moments. Guan Shan for one always makes his head stop for a second, recalculating, cogs and gears halting until whirring together again at twice the speed. But what makes He Tian smile so much is the whole set of pillows shoved close against his back, underneath the covers. If he’s correct, Mo is wearing his old jumper too, sleeves a little long and the shoulders sagging oddly over his smaller frame. 

He Tian puts one knee onto the bedspread and leans down, nose going directly to the dip in Mo’s collarbones. Another knee onto the bed and he’s hovering over Guan Shan, hand coming to cup his face and lips pressing softly against his jaw. 

‘ _Tiantian?_ ’ comes a small mumble partially obscured by covers. 

And then, slightly louder, slightly more awake, ‘You’re back?’ Mo’s eyes blink rapidly and he moves to sit up and rub at them, confused in the darkness. 

He Tian is already rolling down the covers, hands greedily palming Mo, ‘Had to,’ Tian whispers back, ‘Couldn’t have my baby cheatin’ on me with my own pillows-‘ That earns him a well deserved smack against his chest, the ruddy blush off Guan Shan’s cheeks palatable in the small space between them. 

‘I missed you… wanted to come home,’ he says, clearer now. It’s easy to spill secrets in the dark, but he doesn’t really care either way. He’ll say it in the morning too, and when he’s walking back from the grocery store, he’ll say it in front of Jian Yi and he’ll let the little old lady at the market hear him tell Mo he missed him, that he needed him. 

Mo’s hands flutter up to where he imagines Tian’s shoulders are and He Tian feels himself being pulled closer, ‘You came back-‘ it’s so quiet and mumbled against the fabric of his sweatshirt but he hears it clear as day. 

They’re pressed up against one another, foreheads touching, chests rising and falling in sync. He can feel as Guan Shan twirls some of his hair around a finger, he rubs against the soft peach fuzz at the back of Mo’s ears. 

‘Don’t leave for so long again, it makes me go crazy,’ Mo confides to him, eyes looking elsewhere. 

To be wanted, _needed_ even, is not a bad thing. It does not feel unwelcome, or wrong. The tentative bindings that Mo Guan Shan forms around his wrists are treasured, held close. He Tian knows neither of them have a natural propensity for love, not particularly natural home makers, but Mo makes him want to be. He thinks that home might not be a bad thing, a trick waiting to be played. That it might be just like this, hiding in your lovers arms, trading secrets and slow kisses until dawn caresses the polished floors. Even then, joint showers to wash away the smell of anything _other_ , to use familiar shampoo and body wash and put on your clothes that might have holes in them but they’re soft and comforting and Mo bought him this last Christmas. Home is not leaving Mo’s side while he makes eggs for them both, one hand holding his, and Mo doesn’t even complain or pull away. 

It’s wanting but being wanted back. Needing and _needed_. 

Home isn’t always a place, sometimes it’s a person. Mo Guan Shan and He Tian have found theirs. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! <3 you can find me on tumblr @3lji where i post about tianshan <3 i hope you enjoyed!


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